I woke up to my alarm at 5 am and headed to the public bath/ onsen. I had the bath completely to myself. It is nice having a soak early in the morning especially when it is so cold out (-13 C today without the wind chill). When I returned to the room, we packed up and had a coffee I made. We left the room at 6:45 and headed to the subway station. It had snowed a lot over night and the sidewalks had an extra 8 inches of snow since the night before. When the wind blew it made visibility very low.

At Sapporo station we got the lovely JR man to book us tickets on the 8:43 Hokuto train to Hakodate as well as the 12:48 Hayabusa to Shin- Aomori. The Hayabusa is the train that you NEED reservations for, as it goes under the water connecting Hokkaido to Honshu. We then went to a Lawsons to stock up on supplies for the trip. We took turns going into the Lawson, as we had our big backpacks with us. I got coffee, beer, onigiri, an egg sandwich (you need to try one in Japan) and a custard bun. Jives got a ton of stuff, but in his defence, this would be our food for the day, as we were riding quite a few trains. We then walked to our platform and waited for the train to arrive. The trains at the platform were covered in snow, and the underneaths were caked with ice in a way I had never seen before! We got on the train around 8:30 am and waited for the departure time. Like most trains in Japan, it left right on time! Somewhere around Noboribetsu I saw a fox running in the deep snow across a field. I had seen about 35 plus deer, but this was my first fox!! Given that we had set ourselves the personal task of visiting as many Inari (fox) shrines as we could in Japan, it was cool to see an actual little mischievous guy in the wild. We sat and drew in our sketchbooks and wrote, occasionally eating something from our Lawson haul.

The train ride to Hakodate is very long, almost 4 hours as you are not on a bullet train. We switched trains to the Hayabusa train to Aomori. Our train from Sapporo was late because of heavy snowfall, so we had to hurry to catch the Shinkansen. The Shinkansen ride to Aomori was brief, about 50 minutes. We had a beer on the train and then we were already there! We then transferred to the JR OU line to go to Aomori station from Shin-Aomori.

This train was pretty brief as well, it took about 15 minutes. Aomori station had many lanterns and apple displays in it (we tried some local apple juice from the specialised vending machine). We then walked to our accommodation “ Aomori Centre Hotel”. We checked into our hotel a bit early at 2:30pm (also along the way to our hotel we saw a lot of daruma shaped lanterns painted by children in a variety of ways depicting different characters; Tony Tony, SpongeBob, Anya from Spy Family, Minecraft characters and many many more). Our room was ok, it had two chairs to sit at and enjoy some snacks and beverages. 

We set out again to adventure at about 4pm. We headed towards the waterfront to check out the Nebuta float museum. Along the way we saw a really cool bridge, and Jives did a rap take there. The Nebuta museum had a really interesting exterior, it was a very modern design and had long red slats all around it made of twisted steel.

We went inside and paid the entrance fee of 640 Yen. We had help purchasing tickets from the machine by a sweet lady. The first hallways of the museum had images of the floats throughout the years and there were fish lanterns hanging from the ceiling. I think the little fish might be the unofficial mascots of the region, because we saw them again in Hirosaki. We then entered the main float room. It was overwhelming.

The floats were huge with so much detail and colour. They had way more dimension and detail than I could have ever imagined. They also played festival music to make you really feel the atmosphere of the festival (that takes place every August). I can only imagine how much work and time goes into each float. There were some displays that showed how the floats are constructed, with a wooden base, wire frame and washi paper exterior. An elaborate system of lightbulbs light the floats these days, but traditionally they were lit by candles! We then left the museum after spending about an hour there (it closes at 6).

It was snowing so hard as we walked to find a restaurant to have dinner at. We found a place not too far away and dusted off as much snow as we could from our body. We sat down and were presented with a message on a card in English telling us to always wear a mask when not eating, and to not speak to prevent the spread of Covid. We then pushed the button on our table and ordered. I got an udon set with tuna sashimi and rice and Jives got a soba set with a bowl full of nato (fermented soy beans), okra and some other things.

We then headed back to our hotel and headed to the onsen. I won’t describe that too much, as I had a negative experience there and don’t really want to share it. This onsen was the biggest one yet with many lockers and bathing stations. I washed and then sat in one of the pools as many people joined me. One very grumpy old lady was storming around judging people and she started screaming at me. I got pretty anxious and left right away. It was a shame, as there was a very nice outdoor bath I never got to see, and at least 5 indoor baths and a sauna.